Our Lady of Czestochowa

Lee Edwares received the VOC Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, at the opening of the Victims of Communism Museum, June 2022. This medal is the highest honor from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which he co-founded in 1994. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Spalding

CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2024 / 14:37 pm (CNA).

Author and Catholic convert Lee Edwards, one of the foremost historians of the conservative movement in America, died Thursday. He was 92. 

Edwards co-founded the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C., authorized by Congress in 1993 and completed in 2007. 

He was a distinguished fellow of conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation for about 25 years, before retiring about a year ago. 

He also wrote 25 books. Among them are well-known histories of American conservatives and conservatism — and, lesser-known works, including “John Paul II In Our Nation’s Capital,” the Archdiocese of Washington’s official account of the pope’s visit in October 1979. 

“He was an optimist, very much upbeat. He believed God had a plan for each of us,” his daughter, author and political scientist Elizabeth Spalding, told CNA. 

Anti-Communism 

The turning point in his life’s work came in 1956 when he was taking graduate classes at the Sorbonne in Paris, when Hungarians, including students about his age, briefly overthrew the Communist government there. 

“And for those almost two weeks, my dad thought, ‘This is it. This is it. We’re going to beat Communism,’ ” Spalding told CNA. 

Then the Soviet Red Army invaded Hungary, crushed the revolt, and restored Communist rule. The United States and its Western allies did nothing. 

“My father said, ‘Right then, I swore I would spend the rest of my life trying to defeat Communism and help those fighting for their freedom,’ ” Spalding said. 

Edwards helped found Young Americans for Freedom in 1960 and edited its magazine, New Guard. He later served as an aide to the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater. 

In 1967, Edwards wrote a political biography of Ronald Reagan during his first term as governor of California, through which he got to spend time with Reagan and his wife Nancy. Edwards became familiar with a code term Reagan used with some of his aides — “the D.P.”, which meant “the Divine Plan.” 

Edwards updated the book after Reagan became president. It came out not long after Reagan was shot and seriously wounded in March 1981. For that edition, the publisher put a yellow border on the cover saying it was “complete through the assassination attempt,” which mortified Edwards. 

Still, Edwards got to meet Reagan in the Oval Office, and he presented Reagan with the updated version of the book. 

“President Reagan puts down the book,” Spalding told CNA, “and then looks over at Dad and says ‘Well, Lee, I’m sorry I messed up your ending.’ ” 

Man of the right 

Freedom and conservatism were at the center of Edwards’s outlook. 

“Mine has been a life in pursuit of liberty,” he wrote in his 2017 autobiography “Just Right.” 

Edwards wrote biographies of Reagan, Goldwater, Edwin Meese, and William F. Buckley Jr., as well as books about conservatism. 

In his 50s, Edwards earned a doctorate in political science from The Catholic University of America in Washington, with a dissertation on the origins of the Cold War. He later taught there as an adjunct professor. 

In 2017, he told an interviewer that he was about to teach a course on the 1960s, during which he planned to present what he called “both sides of the picture” — meaning not just the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam movement, which students often hear about, but also what he referred to as “the rise of the right” — including Goldwater and Reagan. 

Conversion 

Edwards was born December 1, 1932, in Chicago but grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

He was raised a Methodist. His father, a political reporter for The Chicago Tribune, was a lapsed Catholic, though he later returned to the Church. 

In college Edwards stopped going to services because he realized he didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus. 

But in his mid-20s, he decided he needed religion to center his life, after spending a mostly fruitless time in Paris drinking too much beer and chasing too many girls. 

“For the first time in my life, I admitted that I needed someone, something, other than myself to give purpose and meaning to my life: in short, I needed God,” he wrote in an article in Crisis Magazine in January 1994. 

When he got home he tried several Protestant churches. Then one day he went to Mass, at St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill. 

“I said, ‘Oh, this is something different,’ ” he told The Arlington Catholic Herald for a December 2017 profile. 

A Redemptorist priest at the Catholic Information Center in Washington gave him religious instruction and eventually started getting on him to join the Church. Edwards hesitated, coming up with various objections and uncertainties, before finally agreeing. 

The delay led to an unusual date to become a Catholic -– not Eastertime, which is the most common time to enter the Church, but Saturday, Dec. 13, 1958 — St. Lucy’s Day. Yesterday was the 66th anniversary of his being received into the Church.

Edwards later wrote that when he knelt at the communion rail to receive communion for the first time, next to him on one side “was a young black boy in his dark blue Sunday suit and on the other an elderly white woman in a worn cloth coat and hat.” 

“Dad always said part of what he loved was the universality of the Catholic Church,” Spalding told CNA. “Everyone goes up to Jesus.” 

Our Lady 

While he was working at The Heritage Foundation he was a common sight at the midday Mass at St. Joseph’s Church in Capitol Hill. 

Spalding told CNA that many people have contacted her during the past day or two to say they felt inspired by how he witnessed to his faith. 

“It’s something he didn’t talk about all the time,” she said. “It’s something he lived.” 

Edwards was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June. As he neared the end, his daughter said, she and her father discussed what his death day might be. 

Edwards died a little before 8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

That shouldn’t have surprised the family, his daughter told CNA.  To try to keep warm during his declining days he used a polyester lap blanket with a mostly black background and a colorful image of — Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Edwards’s wife of 57 years, Anne, who assisted him in all of his writings, died in November 2022. Their gravestone, designed by the sculptor of the statue in the Victims of Communism Memorial, features an image of St. John Paul II holding a crozier and the words “Be not afraid.” 

He leaves behind two daughters and 11 grandchildren. 

A funeral Mass is set for 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 19 at St. Rita Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia. 

Pope Francis greets artists and participants of the 2024 Vatican Christmas Concert in the Clementine Hall on Dec. 14, 2024. / Vatican Media

CNA Newsroom, Dec 14, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis called on musicians and artists to serve as “angels of peace” during his address to participants of the 2024 Vatican Christmas Concert on Saturday.

Speaking in the Clementine Hall, the pope emphasized the unique power of music to foster unity and communion, drawing parallels to the first Christmas.

“It is moving to think, here in the company of artists and musicians, that when Jesus was born in the silence of the night, a hymn of peace, sung by ’a multitude of the heavenly host,’ suddenly filled the heavens with joy,” the pontiff said.

The annual Christmas concert, which features both established and emerging artists, is supported by the Pontifical Foundation Gravissimum Educationis — Culture for Education and the Salesian Missions.

The pope focused his remarks on two themes he called “vocal lines” — peace and hope — which he encouraged participants to “take up and make heard on the streets of today’s world, in order to pass it on to future generations.”

“Music speaks directly to the human heart in a unique way; it possesses an extraordinary ability to create unity and to foster communion,” Francis said, encouraging participants to invest their “talents, your artistry and your lives, as best you can and wherever you find yourselves, in promoting that culture of fraternity and reconciliation our world today needs more than ever.”

The pontiff particularly noted the concert’s theme of hope, connecting it to the upcoming Jubilee Year. He reminded participants that hope is “founded on faith and nurtured by charity,” quoting from the Bull of Indiction for the 2025 Jubilee.

“Friends, the world and the Church need your talents, your creative ideals, they need your generosity and your passion for justice and fraternity,” the pope concluded, requesting prayers from those present.

Jack Traynor (next to child on first row) as a pilgrim to Lourdes in 1925, two years after his healing. / Credit: Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 14, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

In 1944, Father Patrick O’Connor, an Irish priest and member of the Missionary Society of St. Columban, published “I Knew a Miracle: The Story of John Traynor, Miraculously Healed at Lourdes.”

In the book he recounts how, during a 10-hour train ride to Lourdes on Friday, Sept. 10, 1937, Royal Navy seaman Jack Traynor told him firsthand how he was healed in 1923 at the Lourdes Shrine from the crippling wounds he had suffered from his participation in World War I.

Over a century later, on Dec. 8 of this year, the archbishop of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, Malcolm McMahon, announced that Traynor’s healing has been recognized as the 71st miracle attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes.

O’Connor described Traynor as a “heavy-set man, 5’5”, with a strong, ruddy face” who, according to his biography, “should have been, if he were alive, paralyzed, epileptic, covered in sores, shrunken, with a wrinkled and useless right arm and a gaping hole in his skull.”

Traynor was, in the missionary’s view, a man “with his manly faith and piety,” unassuming, “but obviously a fearless, militant Catholic.” Despite having received only a primary education, he had “a clear mind enriched by faith and preserved by great honesty of life.”

This enabled him to tell “with simplicity, sobriety, exactness” how he was healed at the place where the Immaculate Conception appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

O’Connor wrote down the account and sent it to Traynor, who revised it and added new details. He read the official report of the doctors who examined him and searched the newspaper archives of the time to corroborate the account.

How Traynor came to be considered incurable

Traynor was born in Liverpool, according to some sources, in 1883. His mother was an Irish Catholic who died when Traynor was still young. “But his faith, his devotion to the Mass and holy Communion — he went daily when very few others did — and his trust in the Virgin remained with him as a fruitful memory and example,” O’Connor recalled.

Mobilized at the outbreak of World War I, he was hit by shrapnel, which left him unconscious for five weeks. Sent in 1915 to the expeditionary force to Egypt and the Dardanelles Strait, between Turkey and Greece, he took part in the landing at Gallipoli.

During a bayonet charge on May 8, he was hit with 14 machine gun bullets in the head, chest, and arm. Sent to Alexandria, Egypt, he was operated on three times in the following months to try to stitch together the nerves in his right arm. They offered him amputation, but he refused. The epileptic seizures began, and there was a fourth operation, also unsuccessful, in 1916.

He was discharged with a 100% pension “for permanent and total disability,” the missionary priest related, and in 1920 he underwent surgery on his skull to try to cure the epilepsy. From that operation he was left with an open hole “about two centimeters wide” that was covered with a silver plate.

By then he was suffering three seizures a day and his legs were partially paralyzed. Back in Liverpool he was given a wheelchair and had to be helped out of bed.

Eight years had passed since the landing at Gallipoli. Traynor was treated by 10 doctors who could only attest “that he was completely and incurably incapacitated.”

Unable to walk, with epileptic seizures, a useless arm, three open wounds, “he was truly a human wreck. Someone arranged for him to be admitted to the Mossley Hill Hospital for Incurables on July 24, 1923. But by that date Jack Traynor was already in Lourdes,” O’Connor recounted.

Traynor tells about his pilgrimage to Lourdes

According to the first-person account originally written by O’Connor and corrected and adapted by Traynor, the veteran sailor had always felt great devotion to Mary that he got from his mother.

“I felt that if the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes were in England, I would go there often. But it seemed to me a distant place that I could never reach,” Traynor said.

When he heard that a pilgrimage was being organized to the shrine, he decided to do everything he could to go. He used money set aside “for some special emergency” and they even sold belongings. “My wife even pawned her own jewelry.”

When they learned of his determination, many tried to dissuade him: “You’ll die on the way, you’ll be a problem and a pain for everyone,” a priest told him.

“Everyone, except my wife and one or two relatives, told me I was crazy,” he recalled.

The experience of the trip was “very hard,” confessed Traynor, who felt very ill on the way. So much so that they tried to get him off three times to take him to a hospital in France, but at the place where they stopped there was no hospital.

On arrival at Lourdes, there was ‘no hope’ for Traynor

On Sunday, July 22, 1923, they arrived at the Lourdes Shrine in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. There he was cared for by two Protestant sisters who knew him from Liverpool and who happened to be there providentially.

The pilgrimage of more than 1,200 people was led by the archbishop of Liverpool, Frederick William Keating.

On arrival, Traynor felt “desperately ill,” to the point that “a woman took it upon herself to write to my wife telling her that there was no hope for me and that I would be buried at Lourdes.”

Despite this, “I managed to get lowered into the baths nine times in the water from the spring in the grotto and they took me to the different devotions that the sick could join in.”

On the second day, he suffered a strong epileptic seizure. The volunteers refused to put him in the pools in this state, but his insistence could not be overcome. “Since then I have not had another epileptic seizure,” he recalled.

Paralyzed legs healed

On Tuesday, July 24, Traynor was examined for the first time by doctors at the shrine, who testified to what had happened during the trip to Lourdes and detailed his ailments.

On Wednesday, July 25, “he seemed to be as bad as ever” and, thinking about the return trip planned for Friday, July 27, he bought some religious souvenirs for his wife and children with the last shillings he had left.

He returned to the baths. “When I was in the bath, my paralyzed legs shook violently,” he related, causing alarm among the volunteers who attended to the pilgrims at the shrine, believing it was another epileptic seizure. “I struggled to stand up, feeling that I could do so easily,” he explained.

Arm healed as Blessed Sacrament passes by

He was again placed in his wheelchair and taken to the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. The archbishop of Reims, Cardinal Louis Henri Joseph Luçon, carried the monstrance.

“He blessed the two who were in front of me, came up to me, made the sign of the cross with the monstrance, and moved on to the next one. He just passed when I realized that a great change had taken place in me. My right arm, which had been dead since 1915, shook violently. I tore off its bandages and crossed myself, for the first time in years,” Traynor himself testified.

“As far as I can remember, I felt no sudden pain and certainly I did not have a vision. I simply realized that something momentous had happened,” Traynor recounted.

Back at the asylum, the former hospital that today houses the offices of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes, he proved that he could walk seven steps. The doctors examined him again and concluded in their report that “he had recovered the voluntary use of his legs” and that “the patient can walk with difficulty.”

Traynor makes it to the grotto 

That night, he could hardly sleep. As there was already a certain commotion around him, several volunteers stood guard at his door. Early in the morning, it seemed that he would fall asleep again, but “with a last breath, I opened my eyes and jumped out of bed. First I knelt on the floor to finish the rosary I had been saying, then I ran to the door.”

Making his way, he arrived barefoot and in his pajamas at the grotto of Massabielle, where the volunteers followed him: “When they reached the grotto, I was on my knees, still in my nightclothes, praying to the Virgin and thanking her. I only knew that I had to thank her and that the grotto was the right place to do so.”

He prayed for 20 minutes. When he got up, a crowd surrounded him, and they made way to let him return to the asylum.

A sacrifice made for the Virgin in gratitude

“At the end of the Rosary Square stands the statue of Our Lady Crowned. My mother had always taught me that when you ask the Virgin for a favor or want to show her some special veneration, you have to make a sacrifice. I had no money to offer, having spent my last shillings on rosaries and medals for my wife and children, but kneeling there before the Virgin, I made the only sacrifice I could think of. I decided to give up smoking,” Traynor explained with tremendous simplicity.

“During all this time, although I knew I had received a great favor from Our Lady, I didn’t clearly remember all the illness I previously had,” he noted in his account.

As he finished getting himself ready, a priest, Father Gray, who knew nothing of his cure, asked for someone to serve Mass for him, which Traynor did: “I didn’t think it strange that I could do it, after eight years of not being able to get up or walk,” he said.

Traynor received word that the priest who had strongly opposed his joining the pilgrimage wanted to see him at his hotel, located in the town of Lourdes, outside the shrine. He asked him if he was well. “I told him I was well, thank you, and that I hoped he was too. He burst into tears.”

Early on Friday, July 27, the doctors examined Traynor again. They found that he was able to walk perfectly, that his right arm and legs had fully recovered. The opening in his skull resulting from the operation had been considerably reduced, and he had not suffered any further epileptic seizures. His sores had also healed by the time he returned from the grotto, when he had removed his bandages the previous day.

Weeping ‘like two children’ with Archbishop Keating

At nine o’clock in the morning the train back to Liverpool was ready to leave the Lourdes station, situated in the upper part of the town. He had been given a seat in first class, which, despite his protests, he had to accept.

Halfway through the journey, Keating came to see him in his passenger car. “I knelt down for his blessing. He raised me up saying, ‘Jack, I think I should have your blessing.’ I didn’t understand why he was saying that. Then he raised me up and we both sat on the bed. Looking at me, he said, ‘Jack, do you realize how ill you have been and that you have been miraculously cured by the Blessed Virgin?’”

“Then,” Traynor continued, “it all came back to me, the memory of my years of illness and the sufferings on the trip to Lourdes and how ill I had been at Lourdes. I began to cry, and so did the archbishop, and we both sat there crying like two children. After talking to him for a while, I calmed down. I now fully understood what had happened.”

A telegram to his wife: ‘I am better’

Since news of the events had already reached Liverpool, Traynor was advised to write a telegram to his wife. “I didn’t want to make a fuss with a telegram, so I sent her this message: ‘I am better — Jack,’” he explained.

This message and the letter announcing that her husband was going to die in Lourdes were all the information his wife had, as she had not seen the newspapers. She assumed that he had recovered from his serious condition but that he was still in his “ruinous” state.

The reception in Liverpool was the culmination. The archbishop had to address the crowd to disperse at the mere sight of Traynor getting off the train. “But when I appeared on the platform, there was a stampede” and the police had to intervene. “We returned home and I cannot describe the joy of my wife and children,” he said in his account.

A daughter named Bernadette

Taynor concluded his account by explaining that in the following years he worked transporting coal, lifting 200-pound sacks without difficulty. Thanks to providence, he was able to provide well for his family. 

Three of his children were born after his cure in 1923. A girl was named Bernadette, in honor of the visionary of Lourdes.

He also related the conversion of the two Protestant sisters who cared for him, along with his family and the Anglican pastor of his community.

From then on, Jack volunteered to go to Lourdes on a regular basis until he died in 1943, on the eve of the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

Paradoxically, and despite the factual evidence of his recovery, the Ministry of War Pensions never revoked the disability pension that was granted to him for life.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

null / Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

It’s that time of year again!

With Christmas quickly approaching, you may still be looking for the perfect gift for people on your shopping list. We’ve compiled a list of Catholic businesses that sell unique gifts for anyone you’re shopping for this holiday season.

Abundantly Yours

Rosaries make a perfect gift for a loved one on your shopping list. Abundantly Yours has a wide range of beautiful, handmade rosaries for men, women, and children. With different themed rosaries dedicated to a variety of saints — including St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Padre Pio, St. John Paul II, and St. Teresa of Calcutta — you’re bound to find the perfect one for whomever you’re shopping for.

Stella & Tide

Jewelry is always a great option for any woman you’re shopping for this Christmas. Stella & Tide provides beautiful, dainty Catholic jewelry with the hope of reminding the wearer to always turn to Christ in any difficulties she might encounter. The shop has everything from necklaces to earrings to bracelets and rings. 

The Catholic Woodworker

For any man you might be shopping for, The Catholic Woodworker specializes in beautifully crafted, masculine products including rosaries, pocket rosaries, crucifixes, home altars, and more. The Italian-made wall crucifix features the medal of St. Benedict and has a beautiful metal frame and dark wood inlay.

Be a Heart

If you’re shopping for children on your list, Be A Heart has a wide variety of Catholic-inspired toys including wooden puzzles, dolls, books, and more. A fun stocking-stuffer idea are the Jesus heals bandages, which include five different designs and remind little ones that Jesus heals all, even those scrapes and scratches.

Holy Pals

Looking for a gift the whole family can enjoy? Holy Pals offers matching family Christmas pajamas, even for your furry family members! Holy Pals aims to design products that give children the opportunity to draw near to Christ and to help parents teach their children about the faith. Their Christmas PJs come in a variety of designs including Prince of Peace, Away in a Manger, O Holy Night, and more, and range in sizes from newborn to adult XXL. They even have matching pet bandanas!

Gather and Pray

The Catholic Planner from Gather and Pray is a great gift for anyone who loves being organized, writing to-do lists, and keeping track of busy schedules. This planner also serves as a liturgical planner with feasts days and holy days of obligation included as well as pages on how to do an examination of conscience, how to pray the rosary, a list of novenas with start and end dates, and daily meditations.

EWTN Religious Catalogue

The EWTN Religious Catalogue also offers a plethora of Catholic goods that would make great gifts. The Holy Family holy water font is a particularly beautiful gift featuring the Holy Family sculpted in great detail and has a deep basin for holy water. (Note: EWTN is CNA’s parent company.)

Detail of a 1964 West German postage stamp showing Father Alfred Delp. / Credit: Zabanski/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 14, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

In the waning months of World War II, deep in the heart of Nazi Germany, a Catholic priest prayed in a prison cell, awaiting trial and a likely death sentence. The charges against him were false, and his trial, which began soon after Christmas, would prove to be a sham.

As you might expect, all this made for a somewhat subdued Advent for Father Alfred Delp — a German Jesuit whose meditations on Advent, written from prison and published after his death, continue to provide inspiration to readers. (“Prison Meditations of Father Delp” was published after his death.)

The young priest was executed the following February, in 1945.

Even before his ordeal in prison, Delp had preached and written extensively on Advent, even exhorting his people that “all of life is Advent” — a constant state of waiting, journeying, and longing for something greater. Christians, Delp said, should be actively preparing for the heavenly realities that are to come.

“To wait in faith, for the fruitfulness of the silent earth and for the abundance of the coming harvest, means to understand the world — even this world — in Advent,” he later wrote from his prison cell.

Delp was born in Mannheim, Germany, on Sept. 15, 1907. He was baptized Catholic but raised in a Lutheran home. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 saw his father drafted, and it shaped the younger Delp’s view on violence and the fragility of human life.

At the age of 14, Delp made the decision to leave the Lutheran church and received the Catholic sacraments. Postwar Germany was now in turmoil, creating fertile ground for extremist ideologies like Nazism to arise. 

Adolph Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in early 1933 and by that summer the Nazi Party was the only officially recognized political party in the country. As Nazism started to take hold, religious freedom came under attack, freedom of speech was suppressed, and numerous groups, particularly Jews, were persecuted. 

Delp entered the Society of Jesus in 1926 and was ordained in 1937, just two years before the Nazi invasion of Poland, which kicked off World War II in Europe. As a priest, Delp found himself in increasing danger but used his sermons and writings to continue to resist the Nazi’s ideology and rule, even cleverly twisting the words of the Nazi’s own propaganda against them by subverting the language of oppression. 

In one of his many sermons where he criticized Nazi society, he lamented that so many people had abandoned the idea of “a divine homeland to which to emigrate ... they are ultimately God themselves, and there is no God above them.” He exhorted his fellow believers that even small acts of courage can make a difference. 

He spent several years working for a Jesuit newspaper in Germany until the Nazis shut it down, and he became rector of a parish in Munich. Soon after, in 1942, Delp joined the “Kreisau Circle” — a group of about two dozen dissidents who sought to plan for a new, Christianity-guided Germany after the inevitable fall of Hitler’s regime. 

Delp served as the group’s spiritual adviser, bringing with him a deep understanding of Catholic social teaching. 

Delp and two other Jesuit members of the circle were able to fly under the Nazis’ radar for a few years until an infamous failed attempt on Hitler’s life by some of his high commanders. Despite having nothing to do with the failed plot, members of the circle were rounded up as the Nazis worked to arrest anyone with ties to the resistance. Delp could have gone into hiding but chose not to. 

Delp was not the only German priest killed for his resistance to Nazi ideology. Father Max Josef Metzger was executed for his peace activism and ecumenical work less than a year before Delp was killed. (Metzger was beatified last month in Freiburg, Germany.)

After Delp’s arrest in July 1944, he was taken to Berlin where he was interrogated and tortured for several weeks. In September, he was sent to a prison in Berlin to await his trial. It was there that he wrote his famous reflections, which women who were in charge of Delp’s laundry then smuggled out of the prison, sending them to his most trusted friends back in Munich.

Delp’s long Advent

“When I pace back and forth in my cell, three steps forward and three steps back, hands in irons, ahead of me an unknown destiny, I understand very differently than before those ancient promises of the coming Lord who will redeem us and set us free,” Delp wrote in one of his December 1944 Advent reflections. 

“So much courage needs strengthening; so much despair needs comforting; so much hardship needs a gentle hand and an illuminating interpretation; so much loneliness cries out for a liberating word; so much loss and pain seek a spiritual meaning.” 

Delp offered profound meditations on hope in his writings, despite his acute awareness — incarcerated as he was — of the darkness of the present time in Germany and in the world at large. 

“Life happens within a greater context than man can cope with or understand. Life brings greater burdens and bears a richer cargo than we can cope with, comprehend, or manage alone,” he wrote. 

“There is no reason to lose heart or give up and be depressed. Instead this is a time for confidence and for tirelessly calling on God … His nearness is as intimate as our longing is genuine. His mercy is as great as our call to him is earnest. His liberation is as near and effective as our faith in him and in his coming is unshaken and unshakable. That’s the truth!”

Delp was acutely aware that faith often requires a walk through darkness and uncertainty but doing so in relationship with God is the path to joy, regardless of one’s external circumstances. His convictions shine through in his meditation for the third Sunday of Advent, which is designated Gaudete (“rejoice”) Sunday in the Church.

“Only in God is man fully capable of life. Without him, over time, we become sick. This sickness attacks our joy and our capability for joy,” he wrote from prison. 

In his reflection on the Vigil of Christmas, Delp observed that the “harshness and coldness of life have hit us with a previously unimaginable force” on that bitter — yet still blessed — Christmas in the midst of war and oppression. 

“We should not avoid the burdens God gives us. They lead us into the blessing of God,” he wrote. 

‘The coming harvest’

Two days after the feast of the Epiphany in 1945, Delp’s trial finally began under a judge described as a “fanatical priest-hater.” Delp was summarily sentenced to death, despite having prepared for his trial, apparently laboring under the impression that it would be fair. Instead, he faced a kangaroo court designed to project Nazi power. 

In most cases, execution immediately followed a death sentence, but Delp was instead sent back to his prison cell. In the two weeks that followed, he wrote several more meditations, including one on the Lord’s Prayer and one on the Litany of the Sacred Heart. 

He stopped writing in January after hearing news of the executions of several other members of the Kreisau Circle as well as news of the arrest of his provincial superior.

After his long Advent of “waiting in faith,” Delp finally experienced the “abundance of the coming harvest” when on Feb. 2, 1945, he was hanged and his ashes scattered to the wind. He was 37.

“The world is more than its burden, and life is more than the sum of its gray days. The golden threads of the genuine reality are already shining through everywhere,” Delp wrote in his prison reflections. 

“Let us know this, and let us, ourselves, be comforting messengers. Hope grows through the one who is himself a person of the hope and the promise.”

A pro-abortion activist displays abortion pills as she counter-protests during a pro-life rally on March 25, 2023, in New York City. / Credit: Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 13, 2024 / 18:40 pm (CNA).

President-elect Donald Trump vowed he would not use his executive authority to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone in an interview published by Time magazine on Dec. 12.

When asked by Time whether he was “committed to making sure that the [Food and Drug Administration (FDA)] does not strip their ability to access abortion pills,” Trump said “that would be my commitment — yeah, it’s always been my commitment.”

The FDA first approved mifepristone to be used in chemical abortions in 2000. Under current law, the drug is approved to abort an unborn child up to 10 weeks’ gestation, at which point the child has a fetal heartbeat, early brain activity, and partially developed eyes, lips, and nostrils.

Mifepristone kills the child by blocking the hormone progesterone, which cuts off the child’s supply of oxygen and nutrients. A second pill, misoprostol, is taken between 24 to 48 hours after mifepristone to induce contractions meant to expel the child’s body from the mother, essentially inducing labor.

Chemical abortions account for about half of the abortions in the United States every year.

Before Trump committed to maintaining access to the abortion pill, the president-elect went back and forth with the Time reporter, stating that the issue is complex “because you have other people that, you know, they feel strongly both ways, really strongly both ways, and those are the things that are dividing up the country.”

The pledge is a blow to pro-life activists who had urged Trump to use the FDA’s power to enforce a Comstock Act prohibition on the delivery of “obscene” and “vile” products through the mail — which includes the delivery of anything designed to produce an abortion. 

Trump, who moderated his position on abortion during the 2024 presidential election, has said the states should determine their own policies on abortion. He said during the campaign that he would not sign a national abortion ban if elected.

Alternatively, Trump has praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to restrict abortion and has vowed to free pro-life activists who have been imprisoned for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. He has also said he would consider a ban on federal funding for pro-abortion groups internationally and has vowed to protect religious freedom.

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior, which has programs for the disabled, elderly, and impoverished, argued caring for those in need is part of its religious mission. / Credit: Catholic Charities Bureau

CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case brought by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior in Wisconsin after the Wisconsin Supreme Court in March ruled the agency ineligible for a religious tax exemption because Catholic Charities’ service to the poor and those in need was not “typical” religious activity. 

The Catholic Charities agency, which operates under the purview of the Diocese of Superior and has programs for the disabled, elderly, and impoverished, has argued that caring for those in need is part of its religious mission as a Catholic organization.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court had in March, however, ruled 4-3 that Catholic Charities’ activities are not “typical” religious activities because Catholic Charities serves and employs non-Catholics, does not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith,” and that its services to the poor and those in need could also be provided by secular organizations. 

As a result of the ruling, Catholic Charities remains mandated to pay into Wisconsin’s unemployment system, which it has paid into ever since Wisconsin’s tax exemption for organizations “operated primarily for religious purposes” was introduced in 1972.

In August, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Superior appealed the Wisconsin ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court will now decide whether a state violates the First Amendment’s religion clauses by denying a religious organization an otherwise available tax exemption because the organization does not meet the state’s criteria for religious behavior. 

An amicus brief filed by the Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) explained that the Church views service to the poor as a religious activity because it is a core tenet of the faith and a command from Christ, distinguishing this command from simple philanthropy and explaining that Christian charity is about “looking at others through the very eyes of Jesus” and “seeing Jesus in the face of the poor.” 

The Catholic Church sees this duty as “inherently religious” because it expresses love for Christ, each other, and those they help, the WCC said. Quoting Pope Benedict XVI in Deus Caritas Est, the WCC stated that the Church “cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the sacraments and the Word.”

“Catholic Charities Bureau is on the front lines bringing love, healing, and hope to the most vulnerable members of our community,” said Bishop James Powers, bishop of the Diocese of Superior, in a Friday statement. 

“We pray the court recognizes that this work of improving the human condition is our answer to Christ’s call to serve those in need.”

Becket, the public-interest law firm representing the Catholic Charities agency, said the state of Wisconsin is “trying to make sure no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Penalizing Catholic Charities for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike is ridiculous and wrong,” said Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. 

“We are confident the Supreme Court will reject the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s absurd ruling.” 

null / Credit: Djavan Rodriguez|Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 13, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago in a letter published this week in the archdiocesan newspaper urged Catholics to stand while receiving holy Communion and not make gestures that draw attention to oneself.

In the letter, published in the Chicago Catholic, Cupich said “the norm established by [the] Holy See for the universal Church and approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is for the faithful to process together as an expression of their coming forward as the body of Christ and to receive holy Communion standing.”

The cardinal goes on to state that “nothing should be done to impede any of these processions” and that “disrupting this moment only diminishes this powerful symbolic expression, by which the faithful in processing together express their faith that they are called to become the very Body of Christ they receive.”

“Certainly reverence can and should be expressed by bowing before the reception of holy Communion, but no one should engage in a gesture that calls attention to oneself or disrupts the flow of the procession,” he added. “That would be contrary to the norms and tradition of the Church, which all the faithful are urged to respect and observe.”

The letter does not directly state what specific gestures draw “attention to oneself.” CNA reached out to the archdiocese to request clarification but did not receive a response by the time of publication. 

Although the guidelines issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) state that receiving Communion while standing is the norm, a person cannot be denied Communion because he or she is kneeling. 

“The norm for reception of holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States is standing. Communicants should not be denied holy Communion because they kneel,” according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. “Rather, such instances should be addressed pastorally, by providing the faithful with proper catechesis on the reasons for this norm.”

The matter is also addressed in the 2004 Vatican document Redemptionis Sacramentum, which was issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments under St. John Paul II’s papacy.

The Vatican document states that Catholics “should receive Communion kneeling or standing” and that it is “not licit to deny holy Communion” based on whether a person “wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing.”

In his letter, Cupich wrote that “we all have benefited from the renewal of the Church ushered in by the Second Vatican Council.” 

“By recognizing this relationship between how we worship and what we believe, the bishops at the council made clear that the renewal of the liturgy in the life of the Church is central to the mission of proclaiming the Gospel,” the cardinal added. “It would be a mistake to reduce the renewal to a mere updating of our liturgy to fit the times we live in, as if it were a kind of liturgical facelift. We need the restoration of the liturgy because it gives us the capacity to proclaim Christ to the world.”

“The law of praying establishes the law of believing is our tradition,” Cupich wrote. “When the bishops took up the task of restoring the liturgy six decades ago, they reminded us that this ancient principle enjoys a privileged place in the Church’s tradition. It should continue to guide us in every age.”

For centuries before the Second Vatican Council, which concluded in 1965, the norm within the Latin rite was to receive Communion on the tongue while kneeling. The council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, promulgated in 1963, did not make any changes to this norm.

Rather, in response to bishops permitting Communion in the hand while standing, the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship issued the document Memoriale Domini in 1969 to permit the practice in some circumstances but emphasized that bishops must “avoid any risk of lack of respect or of false opinions with regard to the blessed Eucharist and to avoid any other ill effects that may follow” when allowing Communion in the hand.

Pilgrims attend Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 12, 2022, to mark the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and the unborn. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2024 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco is launching a project to increase devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe in response to Pope Francis’ call to prepare and pray as the 500th anniversary of the Guadalupe apparition approaches.

Cordileone told EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” of his goal of “informing people of this call of Pope Francis,” which he said is “largely unknown” to English-speaking Catholics.

To that end, the archbishop is promoting Project Guadalupe 2031, an initiative to help families enthrone Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes. Through a new “Mass of the Americas,” which will be celebrated across the country, he also hopes to encourage a devotion to Our Lady.

Cordileone is also drawing attention to a nine-year intercontinental novena, called for by Pope Francis in 2022, that anticipates the fifth centennial of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2031.

“We want to promote awareness of this and invite people into this novena to instill greater devotion to Our Lady because she’s the one who always leads us to the encounter with her son,” Cordileone told Arroyo. 

“We’ve planned celebrations of the Mass of the Americas that I commissioned six years ago to bring the popular music Mexican people sing to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe into the sacred music tradition of the Church,” Cordileone said. 

Composed by Frank La Rocca, Mass of the Americas is a liturgy of unity with Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and all the Americas.

Cordileone recalled an archdiocesan celebration as the spark for the idea. 

“This all was born from six years ago: Dec. 8 was on a Saturday, and we had an archdiocesan-wide celebration of Our Lady Guadalupe on the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception,” Cordileone recalled. 

“So I thought, we all love Our Lady no matter which side of the border we live on, what language we speak, what culture we come from,” the archbishop said. “So we need to look to Our Lady as the mother who unites us all into one family of God.” 

“It’s a Mass of unity,” Cordileone explained, noting that celebrations of the special Mass will be celebrated in different venues across the U.S. The culmination of this will be a celebration of the Mass on the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary on Oct. 7, 2025, at the Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe (Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) in Tepeyac outside of Mexico City. 

The shrine was built at the site of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearance to St. Juan Diego in 1531, which led to the conversion of several millions of Aztecs. The shrine is home to the famous miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

The Mass of the Americas will be sung by a festival choir, featuring hundreds of singers from across the United States and led by Richard Carrillo of the University of Nebraska. Carrillo, 41, first conducted the Mass of the Americas as part of his doctoral dissertation for Miami’s prestigious Frost School of Music.

Carrillo shared about the importance of Our Lady in his life in an interview with the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner. 

Carrillo, who is of mixed Indigenous and Mexican ancestry, recalls his grandmother singing “La Guadalupana” to him when he was a young boy. 

“When I first heard the lullaby my grandmother sang to me raised into sacred music for the Mass of the Americas, I was so moved I wept,” Carrillo said. “I know Mimi continues to pray for me, with the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, from heaven.”

Carrillo credits Our Lady for his own Catholic faith. 

“It’s hard to not find her responsible for my faith and the strong faith of my family that preceded me for generations,” Carrillo said. “I have deep roots in both Mexican Indigenous and Hispanic backgrounds. It was Our Lady of Guadalupe’s original apparition that first brought my ancient ancestors to their faith — and a faith that has been passed down for nearly 500 years to this present day.” 

The festival choir will be open to people of a variety of skill levels, with the more challenging parts sung by a smaller chamber choir.  

“One of the beauties of the Mass of the Americas is that it is accessible for average singers,” Carrillo said. “If someone just loves to sing, they will be able to sing the majority of the Mass of the Americas in Mexico, and if someone is a more trained singer (has a degree in music or is a professional musician) they may be asked if they would be willing to learn two additional songs.” 

The choir itself will contribute to the ideal of unity, drawing on hundreds of voices from the Americas.

“But my hope is that we can truly put together a true cross-section of musicians from all parts of the country, from the big cathedrals and the small parish choirs to even singular cantors from smaller churches, to represent the United States in this historic celebration of the 500th anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Carrillo said.

Anticipating the 500th anniversary of Guadalupe

In preparation for the anniversary, the Benedict XVI Institute is inviting families to enthrone an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes.

The goal? One hundred thousand “home enthronements” in the next three years.

The Benedict XVI Institute’s Project Guadalupe 2031 will offer free materials for families who wish to have an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in their homes, including instructions for devotion.

The institute has commissioned a new painting by San Francisco artist Bernadette Carstensen as well as a new “Litany for Our Lady of Guadalupe and the American Saints” by the institute’s poet-in-residence James Matthew Wilson. 

“This is another part of our effort to raise awareness of the nine-year novena to enthrone that image of Our Lady of Guadalupe because that is the pivotal moment of introducing Christ into this hemisphere, and we are all a part of it,” Cordileone said.  

Cordileone shared the inspiration for this, noting that Our Lady “brought her son” to the Americas through the apparition. 

“She brought him here to us, so she’s our connection to her son,” the archbishop said. “So we enthrone her in our homes as a reminder of what she has done for us in giving birth to her son, and she continues to give birth to her son for us to lead us into that saving encounter with him.”

Pope Francis meets with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Vatican on Oct. 9, 2021. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 13, 2024 / 16:35 pm (CNA).

Despite former speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent statement that she has appealed to the Vatican to overturn the Communion ban imposed on her because of her position on abortion, such recourse is no longer likely to be available to her, a canon law professor told CNA.

Pelosi would have needed to bring her case to Pope Francis within 30 days of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s initial imposition of the ban in 2022, said Father Stefan Mückl, an ecclesiastical law professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.  

In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter published this week, Pelosi said she had sought intervention at the Vatican to get the ban overturned.

“My understanding, as long as Rome has the case, it hasn’t been resolved,” Pelosi told the National Catholic Reporter. “I’ve never been denied. I’ve been to Catholic churches all over the country, and I’ve never been denied.”

It is not clear when Pelosi appealed to the Vatican. The National Catholic Reporter said “she did not respond to a request to speak with her canon lawyer” and that “her spokesmen declined to comment on a personal matter.”

In a 2022 open letter addressed to the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Cordileone prohibited Pelosi from receiving holy Communion because of her public position on abortion. He cited Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law as applying to her case.

According to Mückl, if Pelosi made an appeal under canon law to the Vatican, she would have needed to have done so within a specific time frame.

“If Mrs. Pelosi has now lodged an ‘appeal’ with the Holy See, this will hardly be a recourse in the canonical sense because such a recourse [would] clearly be out of time,” Mückl told CNA.

“At best it can be assumed that it is a ‘political appeal,’” he said. “A recourse in the technical sense would be time-barred.”

Referring to Canons 1734 and 1735 of the Code of Canon Law, Mückl explained that Pelosi would have had “10 days to seek revocation of a decree by the author [Cordileone], then 30 days for proposing recourse to the hierarchical superior [Pope Francis].”

In response to Pelosi’s comments in the National Catholic Reporter, the archbishop of San Francisco issued a statement Dec. 10 expressing his desire to speak with the politician.  

“As a pastor of souls, my overriding concern and chief responsibility is the salvation of souls. And as Ezekiel reminds us, for a pastor to fulfill his calling, he has the duty not only to teach, console, heal, and forgive but also, when necessary, to correct, admonish, and call to conversion,“ Cordileone wrote.

“I therefore earnestly repeat once again my plea to Speaker Pelosi to allow this kind of dialogue to happen,” he added.

According to Mückl, if Pelosi refuses to engage in dialogue with Cordileone, “juridically speaking she has not fulfilled her duty to cooperate.”

However, Pope Francis is “free to take the matter to himself,” Mückl told CNA. “Whether he would actually do so is difficult to predict.”